17. Brittney #3
More hands. Worse hands. Then one that’s almost recognizable - five fingers, proper proportions. A small note: Margaret said “improvement.” Felt like a participation trophy.
Tried to draw her eyes from memory. Realized I’ve been looking at her for three years and couldn’t remember if she has flecks of gold or if I imagined them. Spent two hours staring at photos. She has them. I wasn’t imagining it.
My throat closes completely.
Proportions still wrong. Margaret says I’m improving. Doesn’t feel like it.
Tried painting today. Disaster. But I think I finally understand why she loves this. Building something from nothing. Watching it become real. It’s terrifying and addictive and I only made a blob but I understand now. I understand her a little more.
I’ve been watching her sleep. Trying to memorize the way the light hits her face. That sounds creepy written down. But I want to get it right. I want to see her the way she deserves to be seen. I want to make something worthy of how she makes me feel.
I’m crying. I don’t know when I started.
The last entry is dated three days ago:
Started the real one today. The one I’ve been practicing for.
My hands won’t stop shaking. Margaret asked why this piece matters so much and I told her it’s for someone who taught me that love isn’t something you say.
It’s something you build. Stroke by stroke.
Day by day. Even when you’re terrible at it.
Even when you fail. You keep showing up with your paint-stained hands and your crooked lines and you try again.
I’m going to try again.
For as long as she lets me.
I close the sketchbook and hold it against my chest like it’s something holy.
He didn’t take those classes to impress me.
He took them to understand me.
The bathroom door opens. Shawn steps out, towel around his waist, steam curling behind him - and freezes.
His eyes go to the canvas. To the sketchbook pressed against my chest. To my face, tear-streaked and wrecked.
“Britt.” His voice cracks like glass. “I wasn’t - it’s not finished - I was going to wait until it was good, until I could-” He takes a step toward me, then stops, like he’s afraid of what he’ll see if he gets too close. “Please say something.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“It’s terrible,” he says, the words tumbling over each other.
“I know it’s terrible. Your eyes aren’t right.
I’ve repainted them six times and I still can’t capture - there’s this thing that happens when you’re really focused, this light, and I can’t-” He runs a hand through his damp hair, leaving it standing in wild peaks.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked. I should have told you. I just wanted to-”
“How long?”
He stops. “What?”
“How long have you been taking classes?”
He swallows. I watch his throat move.
“Since right after I saw you through the glass at Helena’s.
” His voice drops to something barely above a whisper.
“You were sketching something while you talked to a customer. Just… absent-mindedly drawing in the margins of a receipt. And I watched your face, and I realized I’d never once-” He stops.
Starts again, like the words hurt coming out.
“I’d spent all those years looking at you and I’d never really seen you.
Not the way you see things. Not the way you see the world.
So I thought…” Another swallow. “I thought maybe if I learned. If I tried. Maybe I could finally understand.”
I stand up slowly. My legs are unsteady.
“You painted me,” I whisper.
“I tried.” He looks like he might shatter. “It’s awful. It doesn’t do you justice. Nothing I make will ever do you justice, but I couldn’t stop trying, I couldn’t-”
I cross the room and kiss him.
Not gentle. Not careful. I kiss him like I’m trying to pour everything I can’t say into the space between our mouths - the gratitude and the grief and the terrifying, overwhelming weight of being seen.
Being studied. Being worth three months of Tuesday nights and six layers of paint and a sketchbook full of failures that were never really failures at all.
He makes a broken sound against my lips. His arms come around me, pulling me so close I can feel his heartbeat against my chest, rapid and desperate.
The sketchbook falls to the floor.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. His eyes are red. So are mine, probably.
“It’s not finished,” he whispers.
“Neither are we.” I reach up to touch his face - this face I’ve been looking at for years, that I’m only now starting to really see. “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You keep working on it. You keep trying to get it right. You don’t give up because it’s hard.”
He stares at me like I’ve handed him something sacred.
“I’m talking about us,” I clarify, my voice thick. “Not just the painting.”
“I know.” He pulls me closer, pressing his forehead to mine. “I know you are.”
We sink down right there on the floor, surrounded by all his failed attempts and the one that was finally starting to look like love.